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balance sheets

...control on a specified date and indicates where these resources have come from. As an overview of the company’s financial position, the balance sheet consists of three major sections: (1) the
assets, which are probable future economic benefits owned or controlled by the entity; (2) the liabilities, which are probable future sacrifices of economic benefits; and (3) the owners’ equity,...

Financial statement that describes the resources under a company’s control on a specified date and indicates where they have come from. It consists of three major sections:
assets (valuable rights owned by the company), liabilities (funds provided by outside lenders and other creditors), and the owners’ equity. On the balance sheet, total
assets must always equal total liabilities plus total...

banking

Bank
assets consist mainly of various kinds of loans and marketable securities and of reserves of base money, which may be held either as actual central bank notes and coins or in the form of a credit (deposit) balance at the central bank. The bank’s main liabilities are its capital (including cash reserves and, often, subordinated debt) and deposits. The latter may be from domestic or foreign...

business associations

The second feature, the possession of distinct
assets (or a distinct patrimony), is required for two purposes: (1) to delimit the
assets to which creditors of the association can resort to satisfy their claims (though in the case of some associations, such as the partnership, they can also compel the members to make good any deficiency) and (2) to make clear what
assets the managers of the...

A firm’s balance sheet contains many items that, taken by themselves, have no clear meaning. Financial ratio analysis is a way of appraising their relative importance. The ratio of current
assets to current liabilities, for example, gives the analyst an idea of the extent to which the firm can meet its current obligations. This is known as a liquidity ratio. Financial leverage ratios (such as...

concept of capital

...enterprise that has not been produced through the operations of the enterprise. In economics the word capital is generally confined to “real” as opposed to merely “financial”
assets. Different as the two concepts may seem, they are not unrelated. If all balance sheets were consolidated in a closed economic system, all debts would be cancelled out because every debt is an...

distribution by bankruptcy law

One of the most important aspects of bankruptcy legislation is the determination of the
assets to be seized and sold for the purpose of distributing the proceeds among the creditors. Various legal systems have vastly different approaches. The disparities relate mainly to the status of
assets acquired by the bankrupt subsequent to his adjudication or conveyed away by him prior to that date.

function of money

...proceeds in the interim between the sale and the subsequent purchase or from which the buyer can extract the general purchasing power with which to pay for what is bought. This is called the “
asset” function of money.

income statements

The company uses its
assets to produce goods and services. Its success depends on whether it is wise or lucky in the
assets it chooses to hold and in the ways it uses these
assets to produce goods and services.

inheritance and succession

It is possible to conceive of a social system in which property rights would end with the owner’s death. If the
assets left behind were not reassigned to some other individual, the eventual result would be complete ownership of all wealth by the community, and the system of individual property would end. A new individual owner could be determined in one of four ways: ownership by the first...

An executor or administrator has to collect the
assets of the estate, ascertain and pay the taxes and debts, and distribute the surplus to the legatees or intestate takers. In the civil-law system proper performance of these functions has its sanction in the personal liability of the heir for the debts of the decedent; if he takes steps to free himself of this liability, he has then to manage...